Chance Meetings
by ScrimjaNinja
Summary: After getting injured on a mission Naruto meets someone who will effect his future greatly, will it be for better or worse?


(Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, it belongs to Masashi Kishimoto)

Chance Meetings

Naruto groaned in pained before shifting slightly in the uncomfortable hospital bed that he had been placed in after his last mission. The 19 year old shinobi grimaced and placed his hand over the bandaged area that went around his stomach, on his left side there was a small patch of blood that had escaped the stitches that they had placed in him and had been absorbed by the cloth wraps.

The blond haired shinobi thought back to how he had gotten this particular wound.

Xx Flashback xX

_It had been a routine A ranked mission, get in, kill their target, and then get out again without anyone noticing. _

_But, as every good shinobi knows, no plans go as planned, there is always a margin of error that can come into play, and this night it decided to mess with Naruto's squads plans._

_They had gotten in alright, in through an open window of in the second floor of the mansion that their target was in, 'probably a careless guard' Naruto though as he skulked through the hallways of the large house. Busts of past owners of the house lined the hallways, paintings of great planes and sea side's at sundown lined the walls and thick doors with ornate carvings were dotted along the sides of the corridor._

_Their target was on the third floor, sleeping in a bed that was many sizes too big for him, outside of the room was two guards, one that was a large brute of a man with a shaved head and an axe on his hip, the expression that was on his face spoke of many nights of boredom without any action, the next guard was about a head shorted then his bulky partner, he had long straight black hair that reached past his shoulders and a katana resting on his hip, his hand was resting on the handle of the sword and his eyes shifted from left to right every once in a while showing that he was alert and ready for action of it came to pass._

_Naruto looked at his squad members and said to them through sign language 'ill take care of the guards, you go inside and take out the target.' _

_His two squad members nodded their heads and readied their weapons, waiting for Naruto to make his move. _

_When he struck it was fast and silent, throwing two kunai's towards he heads of the guards, but this was where that margin of error struck his plans, the hulking great figure of the guard that was closest to Naruto turned his body to say something to the shorter guard at the exact time Naruto had thrown his weapons, which caused one kunai to sink deeply into the back of the large guards head and the second to lodge itself into his shoulder instead of the second guards forehead._

_Naruto cursed quietly and ran towards the second shocked guard before kicking him down the hallway, away from the door, so that his squad mates could reach the target. The guard that he was facing now had taken out his katana and raised it into a ready position before charging at Naruto with a quick slash and Naruto's mid section. Naruto quickly jumped back and took out two kunai and held them in a reverse position before charging into the samurai wannabe, their blades met in a clash of steel and sparks before they moved again Naruto going low and the guard thrusting his katana forward in a stabbing motion._

_Naruto's kunai had been lodged into the guards thigh before the guard could continue his attack, stumbling back slightly the man grimaced and pulled the offending piece of metal out of his leg before throwing it back at Naruto who was watching the man calmly. _

_Catching his weapon easily Naruto moved to finish the guard off with a head on charge, the man couldn't maneuver easily in the fight anymore because of him injured leg. _

_When they met again Naruto was surprised at what the man did, he took both kunai in the chest before tackling into Naruto and stabbed him in the side before collapsing dead. Gasping in pain Naruto shoved the now dead man off of him and grabbed the sword before pulling it out with a squelch. Naruto grit his teeth together and put pressure on the wound before getting up and moving over to the door of their target, inside there was a head less body and a scroll that had a few plumes of smoke dispersing around it, obviously his squad had just finished their work and had sealed the head into the scroll._

_When they looked over at Naruto who was holding his side as blood ran between his fingers and onto his vest. "Naruto!" they cried at the same time "are you alright buddy?" Naruto just nodded his head and said "It's alright, he didn't hit anywhere vital, let's get back to the leaf village and ill get patched up there. His squad mates looked unsure but it was an order from their squad leader so they moved quickly and escaped through the window that hey had come through before dashing off through the tree's back home to the leaf village._

Xx Flashback end xX

When they had gotten back to the leaf village he told his squad mates to report in to the Hokage while he went to the hospital to get his wound looked at. The doctors were shocked when he calmly walked in and asked if "he could get this looked at" while pointing to his still bleeding side.

Needless to say half an hour later, through the use of medical Jutsu and stitches Naruto was rapped up and resting in a bed in the west wing, when he had protested and said that he was fine they said that he was being held over night just to see if there was any infection in the wound. Knowing better then to argue with people that could prescribe him any amount of drugs that they could pump into this system so he remained docile he gave in and remained in the hospital for nightly observations.

Sighing lightly, Naruto moved up in his bed so that the pillows became a makeshift backrest while he stared at his fingers and contemplated the mission, knowing that he wasn't going to be getting any sleep any time soon he moved the small side table that was connected to his bed and grabbed a blank scroll that was in his Jounin vest pocket.

'I may as well write up my report to the Hokage from my perspective, it beats trying to get to sleep.' Naruto thought before grabbing a pen that he always had with him.

Half way through his report the doors to his hospital room opened and a doctor walked in followed by a gurney and another doctor, they wheeled the gurney next to the bed before lifting the person who was on it and put them on the empty bed that was in his room.

One of the doctors left with the gurney while the other stayed and wrote some things onto a medical clipboard before placing it into the shelf that was on the foot of the bed and left the room and closed the door behind him.

Silence settled over the room and Naruto took the moment to get a closer look at the person they had just brought into the room, she had dark purple hair and wore a dark red shirt. beige shorts rested over her hips and dark blue leggings covered the rest of her legs. She looked around the age of sixteen, maybe seventeen a rope necklace hung around her neck, at the bottom of it held a wooden bauble.

Shrugging lightly Naruto returned to his task of writing up a report, when he had almost finished he heard the girl whimper slightly, her nose scrunched up in pain and her brows furrowed.

Naruto watched the girl for a moment as she returned to normal with a blank peaceful look on her face, turning back to the scroll in front of him he finished up before rolling it up and sealed it. He pushed the side table aside before shifting his legs so they dangled over the hospital bed. Placing his feet on the cold floor he stood up and moved over to the window, sliding it open he wiped some of the blood that had leaked through the bandages onto his thumb before running through some hand signs and placed his hands onto the windowsill, a long web of ink seals spread from where his hand made contact with the wood and in a small poof of smoke a small crow stood amongst the dispersing cloud.

Grabbing another scroll from his Jounin vest he opened it slightly until he found a seal that hadn't been activated yet, pushing some chakra into it a small puff of smoke and a piece of meat appeared on top of the scroll, taking the meat he handed it to his summon and watched as it quickly gobbled it down its gullet, he then handed the scroll to the bird and said "Please take this to the Hokage's tower, once you have done that you can go back home" the small black bird cawed once before taking flight in the direction of the Hokage's tower.

Closing the window quietly so as not to wake his neighbor he moved back over to his bed and grabbed his Jounin vest he then placed the scroll that contained treats and payment for his crows back into the compartment that it was in before and then buttoned it back up then took the vest and placed it underneath the bed.

He was about to get back into bed when he heard more whimpering from the bed next to his, looking over he noticed that the purpled haired girl was clutching at her shoulder in pain, moving over to her side he gently moved her hand away and looked at the mark that was glowing slightly. As Naruto had studied the use of seals he could instantly see what it was comprised of, a chakra converting seal on top of a mind destruction seal. Naruto would say that he "Dabbled" in seal work when in reality he was just below Jiraiya's level and still working his way up. Pumping a small amount of chakra into the seal he saw how it was configured, the mind destruction was at the base of the seal and then the chakra converter was atop that which meant that this seal was probably giving the poor girl some terrible visions.

Moving quickly he grabbed a scroll that was in his vest and unsealed some sealing items, a brush and special ink that was specifically made for seal work, the way that it was made was it had chakra infused into it during its making, it was done by specialists as if someone who didn't know how to make it properly infused their chakra into the ink in the wrong way, the ink would be keyed to them and no one would be able to pump chakra into it effectively making it useless for sale.

Moving back to the girl who was now thrashing slightly Naruto formed a handsign and a clone popped next to Naruto who said "Move over that side and hold down her shoulders, I'm going to seal this thing up before it does any more damage" the clone nodded and instantly did as it was bid. When the clone had held down the girl Naruto began drawing seals onto the girls shoulder around glowing mark. He first focused on the mind destruction seal, with quick and precise brushwork he made a seal that would contain any images that the seal forced into the girls mind and stopped any more from pushing through his seal, he then surrounded his seal with another one that would halt any more of the chakra from being pushed into her system from the chakra converter seal. After that he made another seal that bound it all together and made it impossible for it to be broken from any outside source that didn't have his blood inscribed into the ink mix.

He then forced chakra into the now complete seal and watched as it spun and shrunk into a less complex design as a Celtic chain of sorts. That was one of his trademarks, the Uzumaki had swirls and spirals as theirs he had Celtic designs, so that instead of seals they looked more like tattoos. Breathing a sign of relief when he noticed that the girls breathing had evened out and her thrashing had stopped, he looked at her face when he saw that she was now fast asleep and had a peaceful expression on her face.

Dismissing the clone and sealing up his equipment he got back into bed and resolved to take care of the mess in the morning, if the Hokage or Jiraiya saw the seal on the girl's neck and the one surrounding it, they would know that it was him that did the second seal, he would have to ask who gave her the first one so that he could kick the shit out of them for putting on her, nobody deserves that kind of brutal seal it was almost in the same leagues as the caged bird seal that the Hyuga used on their branch members.

Clearing his head of all of these thoughts he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, resolving to take care of the issue in the morning.

XXxXXxXXxXX

Groaning as the light from the window hit his eyes Naruto shifted so that the window was facing his back before wriggling back down into his sheets and breathed a deep breath in only to grimace at the smell of antiseptics and soap.

Opening his eyes he quickly closed them again at the extremely bright room, the white paint on the walls reflected the light and intensified it which hurt his eyes and made them fill up with water.

Once he had gotten his cornea under control he opened his eyes again, slowly this time and looked around him, he was in the hospital. It took a few seconds to remember what happened and why he was in the hospital at this time, he then looked over to the girl who had been writhing in her sleep the night before. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully still and didn't seem to be at all effected by the sunlight that was now shining onto her light milky skin.

Moving his hand down to his side he could feel that there was no excess swelling and that he was most likely going to be discharged from the hospital this morning, so he grabbed his things and dressed himself before moving into the bathroom to relieve himself of the pressure that was currently pressing up against his bladder.

When he got back into the room her could see her stirring from her sleep, so he moved back over to his bed and lay down on it waiting for the nurse or doctor to come in and give him the go ahead to get out of there.

Looking over at his hospital room mate he saw that she was staring at the ceiling, no doubt remembering what had happened to her, 'probably how she got that seal' he thought idly.

When the focus returned to her eyes she looked around before grabbing at her shoulder, a bewildered expression appeared on her face, she was knocked out of her thoughts when she heard a person clear their throat. Looking over at the person who had made the noise she saw a man with blond hair that spiked out wildly around his head, three whiskers on each cheek added to the wild look, his clothes were mostly the standard Konoha Jounin attire, the exception was that he had a black cloth that was on his headband instead of the regular blue.

"You're probably wondering why the seal on your shoulder isn't affecting you." He said in a lazy voice.

Grasping her shoulder once more she glared at the man and hissed "What did you do" not liking the idea of being touched in her sleep.

Raising an eyebrow Naruto looked over at the purple haired girl and said "I sealed it" before lazily pointing at her shoulder and said "That's a nasty piece of work, last night you were thrashing and it appeared you were having a violent nightmare so I sealed it up"

She looked at Naruto for a moment before muttering under her breath "Thanks" sighing deeply she sank back into her pillows and closed her eyes, waiting for the doctor.

Naruto was getting impatient; he wanted to go home so that he could rest in _his_ bed, not this lumpy mattress that made him think he was sleeping on nappies, so he pushed the button on the side of his bed to get one of the nurses' attention.

Five minutes later and a middle aged blond haired woman walked into the room, she had on a standard nurses outfit, her hair was done up in a bun behind her head with several strands that were sticking out of it. When she looked over at Naruto he waved his hand and beckoned her forward and said "I was wondering if you could take a look at this and see if I could be let out of here" while gesturing towards his side.

She agreed and asked him to take off his shirt, which he did, before looking at the wound, it seemed to be healing nicely and there didn't look to be any infection in the area that had been stabbed. Nodding her head she looked back at Naruto and said "your free to go, please sign out at the front desk before you leave"

Grinning widely Naruto turned to the nurse and said "Thank you" before grabbing his shirt and placing back on. Looking to his room mate he noticed that she had a faint blush on her cheeks, her blush deepened when she saw that she had been caught staring at his heavily muscled torso.

Smirking lightly Naruto grabbed the rest of his stuff and went to walk out the door when he stopped and looked back at the purple haired girl and said "If the Hokage asks about me sealing that thing on your shoulder tell him Naruto did it, hell know who I am" he paused when he remembered that he hadn't really introduced himself, scratching the back of his head he said "I'm Naruto by the way." Rolling her eyes the purple haired girl looked back at him with a small smile on her face before saying "I'm Anko"

Waving goodbye to the newly named Anko Naruto walked out of the room and signed out at the front desk before heading home and collapsing onto his bed, almost crying tears of happiness as he felt the comfortable mattress underneath him he kicked off his sandals and shrugged off his vest before relaxing completely into his bed. 'The Hokage can wait for a few hours' he thought lazily before drifting out of consciousness.

XXxXXxXXxXX

A few hours later Naruto opened his eyes and rolled over onto his side to see what time it was, it was one o'clock, deciding that it was time to get up he rolled out of bed and landed on his feet, taking a smell of his clothes he blanched and stripped himself of his clothing before throwing them in a hamper and moved into the shower.

As the hot water worked its magic Naruto though back to the seal that he had seen on Anko's shoulder. The way it was manipulating her was brutal, he wondered if he could take if off of her completely, sure he had temporarily taken care of the problem and it would affect her anymore but knowing that it was on her was probably a huge psychological blow to her, and while shinobi were not known to have the greatest track record of being sane, they did have to keep them self in check so as not to harm their comrades.

Getting out of the shower Naruto dried himself off and got dressed in a casual outfit of blue jeans and a black t-shirt, grabbing a pair of sneakers he walked out the door of his apartment and walked to the Hokage's tower thinking of ways that he could remove the seal on Anko.

XXxXXxXXxXX

Walking inside the Hokage's tower Naruto noticed that the guards there weren't paying attention, so with a quick burst of killing intent he looked at them and said in a deceptively calm voice "Better get back to paying attention boy's, wouldn't want someone to sneak in and steal important information now would we?" his calm voice hardened a bit when he said "You know who would be blamed if someone did get in, right?" the guards paled and shivered at what would befall them if they were blamed for important information getting out and potentially risking the villages and the villagers safety.

Seeing that they had all stiffened Naruto nodded his head and gave them a wry grin before saying "Good to know your alert" before walking up the stairs to the Hokage's office.

Knocking on the door he entered the elderly Kage's office and sat down in one of the chairs that were placed in front of the older mans desk. Looking at his aged leader Naruto noticed that the signs of fatigue were setting in; dark rings surrounded his bloodshot eyes.

Waiting for the old man to finish the paper work that he was doing Naruto thought to what could have caused him this much stress 'probably the council hounding him again' he thought.

When he finally looked up Naruto could see just how tired the man truly was, a deep sadness lurked behind the bloodshot eyes of his leader. "What is it Naruto, I'm rather busy as you can see" he said gesturing to the stacks of paperwork that littered his desk.

"What happened while I was out of the village?" the blond haired man asked quietly. "From the way your acting it must have been something major"

Sarutobi shook his head slightly and said "Orochimaru abandoned the village last night, we found labs dotted around the village, he had been experimenting on children, trying to find the secrets of bloodline limits and a way to live forever."

Naruto's brow furrowed in thought 'That explains the sadness, the old man loved Orochimaru like a son.' Instead of voicing his thoughts Naruto said "I guess the saying about absolute power is true then?"

Smiling bitterly Sarutobi nodded his head before saying "What's worse is that when we found him his own apprentice was at his feet writhing in pain, we didn't know the cause of it but she seemed to be fine once she lost consciousness, poor girl"

Naruto frowned and asked "What was this girl's name?"

Sarutobi sighed and said "Anko Mitarashi"

Naruto eyes widened before he said "Well I know what was wrong with her"

Sarutobi looked at Naruto strangely before asking "And how do you know this?"

Naruto grinned slightly before saying "She was my room mate in the hospital, the reason behind her pain was a seal that was placed on her shoulder, a nasty one too"

Sarutobi looked alarmed at this information, seals as a whole were a dangerous shinobi branch, and with one wayward brush stroke and you could potentially blow yourself and a portion of any street that you were on. "Do you know what this seal does?" he asked seriously.

Nodding his head slowly Naruto explained "On the base level of the seal was a mind destruction seal, this seal has two purposes, the first is to, as the name suggests, destroys a persons mind so that they cant give any information out, the second way this seal can be used is as a torture method, making it so that every time they go to sleep they see horrific images, mentally traumatizing them as well as forcing them to go without any substantial lengths of sleep for a long time."

"The second part of the seal" he continued "Was a chakra converting seal, this could be used in a variety of ways, for instance it could be used to convert regular chakra into medical chakra, but this one was more malevolent, it thickened the chakra and injected it into her system as well as a bunch of chemicals into her system that would cause her to lose control of her higher thoughts, essentially causing her to go into a berserker like state."

Sarutobi sighed deeply thinking at how far his student had fallen and that he had made a mistake in hesitating to kill him, he had a feeling that that decision would come back to haunt him like so many of his decisions over the years.

"I managed to get at it quite early" Naruto said bringing his leader out of his thoughts "I isolated the chakra before it could spread far enough to be detrimental to her career, with a bit more studying I think I should be able to remove it completely without to much harm."

The third Hokage breathed a sigh of relief at this, finally something good had come from today. "When do you think you could remove this seal from Anko?" he asked.

Naruto was silent for a moment and said "Two weeks, with minimal amount of missions if at all possible so that I can focus completely on this." Sarutobi thought this through for a moment, Naruto was a valuable shinobi to have in his forces but if it meant that he could have a future shinobi in perfect health then it would be a small price to pay "Alright then, I want you to get onto this as soon as possible, when Anko gets out of the hospital and we get through with getting as much information about possible locations Orochimaru might have fled to, I'm going to set up a meeting so that you can study the seal in depth, tomorrow afternoon probably" the older man said.

Naruto nodded his head and stood to leave before bowling slightly to his leader and then leaving his office.

Walking outside into the sunshine Naruto noticed that it was later then he thought and that the meeting had taken longer then he had anticipated. Looking over to where the guards were he noticed with a smirk that they were all still in their stiff posture. Walking down the street he remembered that he had taken his sword in for repairs before leaving on his mission, he doubted he would have been injured if he had his sword with him.

Moving quickly to the weapon store that he had given his instrument of death to he walked inside the door, a bell attached to the top of the door rang out into the silent store. Footsteps could be heard rushing out from the doorway behind the counter, a burley man walked out from the back of the store, his hands had thick gloves covering them, soot and ash were smeared up his arms as well as some on his cheeks, when he noticed who was at the door he said "Ah, Naruto I imagine you are here for your sword?" Naruto nodded his head and grabbed his wallet before taking out a couple bills and gave it to the man who went into the back of his store for a moment, only to return a minute later with a sheathed sword.

The scabbard of the sword that the burley man held was black, running down both sides of the scabbard were red circles that had upside down piece signs in black in the centre of them, the guard was a yellow flower shaped guard that had two small holes in it in the shape of a semi circle. Wrapped around the handle was a simple black cloth, pulling out the blade he examined the blade. The blade it self was black, but the temper line of the blade was unique, its temper was irregular in that it curved in the shape of flower blossoms that curved towards the edge of the blade, and the temper line was red. All in all it was a unique sword, one that had cost Naruto a pretty penny to have made, but was worth it in the end, made from the finest metals by one of the best sword smiths in the land Naruto had a nearly indestructible blade, coupled with his own fighting style Naruto was a forced to be reckoned with when he had his blade with him.

With the katana back in his hand Naruto thanked the burly man for sharpening and looking after his sword before exiting the shop and then going home, eager to start working on ideas that could destroy the seal that was placed on Anko by Orochimaru.

Well this idea has been floating around in my head all afternoon. I had to get it out to regain my sanity. I know that it was pretty cheesy to put the sword in there, if you haven't guessed it by now the sword is from One Piece, it is the sword that Zoro gets from the zombie Ryuuma, the blades name is Shusui which translates into "Clear Autumn Water"

It's my favorite sword in any anime so I thought that I would put it in.

Anyway you are probably wondering about the ages, well it goes like this, Naruto is not the Kyuubi jinchuuriki and doesn't have any ties to Minato or Kushina. I will probably explain all of this in the next chapter so don't fret.

Please review and tell me what you think.


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